Tolu Obanro’s sonic mastery in Eniola Ajao’s Beast of Two Worlds (Ajakaju)

Music and movies are two distinct art forms, however, they leverage one another. In the last two years, there has been innovative and culture pushing moves in the application of soundtracks in Nigerian movies.

The man at the helm of affairs, Tolulope Obanro continues to step up his game. His two latest efforts Casa De Novia and Beast of Two Worlds are currently being shown across different distribution channels. The latter find place across cinemas houses in Nigeria while the latter is exclusively shown on Amazon Prime.

Yesterday, I was at the Viva Cinema, Ibadan to watch Beast of Two Worlds, the new flick produced by Eniola Ajao.

In the movie, a desperate king, (Odunlade Adekola) faced banishment due to his wife’s inability to produce a son, he takes a new wife from another world who promises him an heir. Still, her arrival brings unforeseen chaos to the kingdom, forcing the king to confront his fears and fight to secure his dynasty’s future. While the movie was shot over two years ago in Oyo State, the qualities are still retained. It shows the level of creativity and craftiness expended on the post production.

Tolu Obanro marshalled the soundtrack production with Dhortune , Adam Songbird , Praise Eddo all providing their vocal strength. The movie began with a clean cut narration by Praise Eddo with Tolu Obanro producing it. The narration gives the listeners a glimpse of what to expect. Surreal and quite haunting at the same time, the light string gives life to the narration. Call it a crafty introduction and you would still be right.

In days preceding the premiere of the movies at cinemas, the soundtrack of the movie was released on digital platforms. For more than a week before I went to the cinema, I was already listening to the album, piercing the tracks together.

The ten track soundtrack album contain songs like “Abiye,” “Ironu Oba,” “The Wood,” and others, with Tolu Obanro, Dhortune and Adam Songbird majorly singing on the tracks.

A tracks like “Abiye,” comes up during the child labour of the queens. The preceding bata, gangan and solemn string helps in uplifting the scene. Without watching these scenes, the song already tells the watchers what the scene is about. When you hear a line like “Mi Oni gba,” as uttered by Adam Songbird, you are on alert. The line connotes war, problems and friction.

Being an epic movie, Beast of Two Worlds soundtrack making is pivoted in a lot of percussion. This brings into fore the Yoruba essence of the movie with Bata, Shekere, Gangan, etc spotlighting the production.

Beast of Two Worlds is a beautiful collation of effort, from the simple story to the phenomenal direction by Adebayo Tijani and Odunlade Adekola to the colour grading and more essentially the beautiful soundtrack composition by Tolu Obanro. It is a well rounded package.

Tolu Obanro continues to switch things up on each project, with just three months into 2024, it glaring that the film composer has more to offer the movie industry.

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